Luxurious Magazine performed the review on the Senja Restaurant at Saujana during November 2011

During the latter part of November 2011, Luxurious Magazine were invited to sample the delights of the Italian Senja Restaurant at Saujana in Subang Jaya, Kuala Lumpur. It’s rare that we do dedicated reviews on restaurants as more often than not, we have been disappointed with the food we’ve been served at fine dining establishments. So before we get into too much detail we should make it clear that we are not dedicated food reviewers / critics, what we are though is very experienced in reviewing the finest luxury resort and this in turn gives us the accumulated experience of what we believe the best food should taste like.

When we review a restauran such as the Senja Restaurant at Saujana we look at the whole experience, from the greeting, through to the quality of food including plating, taste and texture and the general ambiance, as a publication titled Luxurious Magazine, the cost of the meal is less of a consideration and the verdict a purely personal verdict around – ‘Did we enjoy ourselves and would we go back again?’

About the Senja Restaurant at Saujana

As we have mentioned, The Senja Restaurant Saujana serves Italian cuisine, headed by award winning Italian Chef de Patroni Giovanni Ricci and his enthusiastic team. The restaurant is situated within the grounds of the Saujana Hotel bordering the Saujana Golf and Country Club and is adjacent to the lake within the private ground with dining inside or the opportunity to dine outside on the terrace over the water.

From the outside the Senja Restaurant at Saujana is an impressive looking building, and this is continued within. As you enter this large L shaped restaurant you cannot but notice the multiple awards (11 recently added) picked up by the Senja Restaurant at Saujana at the recent Malaysian International Gourmet Festival. to the right as you enter the restaurant is the long bar, to the left the grand piano with live band performing a selection of nice and easy classics including Sinatra signature songs.

The staff were very attentive and kindly asked us where we would prefer to be seated, we chose a table indoors, central with easy view of the live band and looking out over the lake. Menus were presented to us and we proceeded to choose our drinks and mull over the choice of delights on the food menu. After a couple of minutes we decided to ask the Maitre D’ for assistance and suggested that he and Chef Giovanni should choose the menu for us this evening with the only criteria being, we wanted to be ‘blown away’ and we wanted the best dishes they could possibly make.

The food at the Senja Restaurant at the Saujana

It was a short time before the first course was brought out and placed in front of us, for the meal I was accompanied by my wife Natasha, she started with a Trio Seafood Salad and I had the Vegetable Terrine with Buffalo Mozzarella. The food was well plated and looked inviting, Natasha was thrilled by her starter and kept insisting that I should sample it, hard to refuse when you have a fork being repeatedly thrust into your face with food on it. My Vegetable Terrine was fine, I didn’t get the same excitement from my starter that my wife did and did have some thoughts of this being another one of those restaurants that serves perfectly adequate food, well plated and I leave still waiting for the time I finish a fine dining meal in a restaurant and say to my wife ‘Wow’. Natasha looked at me and said ‘How was it’, my answer was one she had heard before, ‘Fine, just as I expected’, she then gave me one of those raised eyebrow looks.

For the next course Natasha had the Adriatic Seafood Soup and I had the Prawn with tomato chili sauce, olive oil and Bruschetta, Natasha once more was very happy with her first spoonful of the soup, I nonchalantly went to work with my fork and placed a small amount of my dish into my mouth, after about ten seconds I looked across at Natasha and said to her the word she had been waiting for me to say ‘Wow!’ it was incredible, the flavours were strong and distinctive, every bite was a pleasure. The roles were now reversed as I kept thrusting my fork towards Natasha’s mouth saying ‘Taste this, its great, taste it’. The main course was next to follow, Natasha continued with the seafood theme with a plate of Grilled Tiger Prawns, in a lemon butter sauce with steamed vegetables and mashed potato, I had the rack of lamb with a herb crust in an aged balsamic with a couscous and broccoli. Once more the dishes delivered, the lamb just fell off the bones, tender, packed with flavour and so beautiful to look at before being butchered by my eager accouterments, Natasha joined me in the moment by eagerly tucking away into her meal with equal pleasure.

Desserts at the Senja Restaurant at Saujana

We have decided to create a separate section for the review to talk about our favourite part of the meal, the desserts. Natasha had the Panna Cotta and I had Chef Giovanni’s own take on a Tiramasu and they were both truly stunning, the best desserts we have ever tried. They not only looked beautiful but were heaven in the mouth, they had that much of an impact on us that we went back the restaurant the following evening just try try the desserts again, this time I had the Panna Cotta and Natasha an incredible chocolate dessert. The visit the following evening resulted in the same exquisite and excellent experience, whilst at the restaurant we bumped into Mr Ian Hurst the Manager of the whole resort, we told him why we came back which thoroughly pleased him to the point that he secretly told the staff ‘No charge’ for the desserts. We only found this out when we went to pay for the bill, however we insisted on paying as food as good as that deserves to be paid for.

So there we have it, I have been ‘Wowed’ with some of the best food I have ever tasted, knowing how to rate the Senja Restaurant at Saujana is quite straightforward, we look at the Ambiance, Quality of service and most importantly the food. We have been to more extravagant restaurants, we have had food that have been plated like works of art, but at the end of the meal they missed the mark by a fraction, Senja Restaurant at Saujana provided us with the best culinary combination we have tried within any restaurant in Malaysia and I thoroughly recommend that you try it for yourself.